The weekend starts early for teachers at a north London secondary school which finishes its lessons at Friday lunchtime.
The staff are free to leave, or, if they choose take part in the afternoon of extra-curricular activities for pupils, they are paid extra. Fifty of the school’s 86 teachers tend to stay every Friday. Last week, 300 children from the 1,200-pupil school opted to participate in the arts, sports and drama programme.
Truda White, headteacher of Highbury Grove school in Islington, north London, made the radical change to the school timetable to attract staff, and to help the children.She managed to squash the school curriculum into the shortened teaching week by introducing a shorter lunch break and starting the schoolday a quarter of an hour earlier.
She said: “We run sports, theatre, music, arts and language sessions which we are not able to do for everyone within the constraints of the national curriculum.
“Half of my pupils are eligible for free school meals and the parents cannot afford to pay for the music and dance lessons that middle-class kids do. Here they have the chance to learn Russian, Latin, play tennis or do t’ai chi. They can do singing, dancing and acting. The children who decide to stay for the afternoon really enjoy it.
“Those who go home can get their homework done early if they want. Last week I asked two girls what they were going to do with the Friday afternoon and they said they were going to the West End.”
Another radical initiative introduced at the secondary by Ms White aims to ease the transition of pupils from primary schools. She has two primary school teachers who take two of her Year 7 classes for half the week. The children who need most help in adjusting to secondary school are separated from their peers in these two classes and, instead of being taught English, maths, humanities and personal, social and health education by different teachers, they have one teacher for all these lessons. The other subjects are taught by the subject specialists. The other six classes in Year 7 are taught in the normal way by secondary school teachers.
Ms White said: “I have long held the belief that children aren’t ready to transfer to a large, secondary school at 11-years-old. This initiative is helping children to settle and ensures continuity in their education.”
